


rise from the ash

by 10redplums



Series: planes campaign fic [8]
Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Dungeons & Dragons - All Media Types
Genre: Bad People, Fealty, Found Family, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, canon-typical bad families, canon-typical fighting gods
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-13
Updated: 2021-01-13
Packaged: 2021-03-17 23:15:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28733322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/10redplums/pseuds/10redplums
Summary: Miles leaves his old life and finds, instead, a cause to die for.
Series: planes campaign fic [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2044054
Kudos: 1
Collections: Banned Together Bingo 2020





	rise from the ash

The man stands on a raised platform, resplendent in red and black and gold, and he calls out to them and talks of revolution.

A father who does not love him, a king who knows not his name, a god who calls his gifts a curse even as he points him at his enemies-

He says-

_ Your life is your own. You say who you are, you say what you are. You choose who and what you are and who and what you will become. _

He says-

_ We are shaped by our experiences and the world and the people around us but that is not the end of it; we choose where we live and we choose who we love and we choose what we do with the clay that we are given. _

He says-

_ I treasure this gift you have given me. I treasure your choice to stand by my side. I treasure you sharing your gifts and your power and all that you are and all you will be and I thank you, I thank you, with all of my heart and all of my soul. _

Miles had- Miles had been a good child. Good and quiet and obedient, doing well enough at his classes- He’d been good. He hadn’t been good enough.

Too odd to be interesting to his father. Too stupid, too quiet, too passive for his brothers. Wrong all around, in the eyes of his church. He’d kept quiet, and stayed obedient, and all the while had grown strong and bitter and sharp. Sharp enough to cut the world in half. Certainly sharp enough to cut ties with his family.

He says-

_ You are perfect as you are. My brother. My sword. My Miles. _

In the quiet year after school he finds work and it’s enough to allow him to pursue further studies and it’s enough perhaps for the nacre to form its pearl around his terrible core, enough for him to find who he wants to be. It’s certainly enough to take him to that fateful square and leave him coming away with a pamphlet talking about- about ambition, and frustration, and begging for scraps of attention of affection, and when he comes back the next day there’s a pamphlet and a person besides giving him a target he can point himself at. 

He finds- people like him, so full of violence they feel like they might shake apart from it all. He finds people who have given up too much to Joan’s cause who can only force themselves forward. He finds people who  _ burn _ with conviction, who want to tear everything down and start over; he finds people who are just here to hurt people. In his quiet moments he realizes he’s probably in that last category, but-

He’s never known  _ machismo. _

But he’s known violence well enough.  _ Be good and quiet and obedient _ and what had that gotten him? He’d felt the same violence as anyone around him but  _ good and quiet and obedient _ young things did not lash out, did not express that violence, only sat with his books and his music and his little fingers picking and picking and picking, and the small animal of his heart had grown into a beast.

_ My Miles. _

Joan takes him with a firm hand and teaches him he does not have to be grateful for  _ scraps _ , transmutes the soft gold into hard steel and points it at the mountain at the ivory towers from which he’ll throw the gods, and tells him Miles will be free.

Free to do whatever he wants. Free to carve a space for himself in the world that never had room for him. Free to- to  _ have _ wants, beholden to no one.

The size of it terrifies him and Joan, golden shining magnificent Joan, takes his face in his hands and tells him it’s his birthright, his birthright, his birthright. Miles wants to believe him so badly it aches.

**Author's Note:**

> the title for THIS was nearly "aren't you tired of being nice? don't you want to go apeshit?"


End file.
